Thanksgiving Weekend

Our Thanksgiving weekend was a whirlwind tour of Southern California this year. We officially stayed in Orange County, but put lots of miles on our car jetting to other places too!

On Thanksgiving Day, we celebrated with our family, that has grown to include lots of cousins who had a blast running all over the house. Our daughter discovered the stairs and spent her whole evening practicing her up-and-down skills. One highlight of the evening was meeting my sis-in-law's boyfriend (soon to be fiancee, we think) and seeing them interact together. She seems quite smitten, and that was fun to see.

As for the food, it was definitely an "East Meets West" Thanksgiving meal. Some of the delicious foods we ate were: shrimp, meatballs, ham, turkey, fried noodles, broccoli & cheese casserole, mashed potatoes, pumpkin muffins, crepes, and of course, rice! It's untraditional, for sure, but I guess for us, it has become a tradition!

Yummy pumpkin muffins!

The family

Carving the bird

Cousins rockin' the stairs

Trying to make the walls stay up!

The day after Christmas we drove down to San Diego where my parents were, to visit them and my two sisters & their families who live there. The highlight there was meeting my new baby niece (& finding out that another new niece/nephew is on the way). The kids had fun with Mi'ma creating "gingerbread houses" out of graham crackers & all sorts of fun decorations.

Yummy!

Our cousins' cool creations!

On Saturday we drove from Orange County up to LA to visit more family, which doesn't sound like a big trip, but it took us as long to get to LA from Anaheim as it did to get home from San Diego Friday night! Traffic was horrible, and our little girl was very unhappy in the car...

On Sunday we got to go to church with our brother & sis-in-law and support them while they dedicated their baby girl to the Lord. It was a special time for them & a privilege for us to be there.

Unfortunately we also met up with a lot of traffic on our drive home Sunday afternoon. Our little girl again, had a difficult time traveling on this trip. Several times I looked at my husband while we were listening to her screaming in the car and asked him, "How did we make it all the way out to Colorado this summer?" Seriously she was totally out of sorts. She'd had a runny nose, and I'd even taken her to the doctor (Grandpa) to check her ears before we left, just to make sure she didn't have an infection, and she got the "all clear" sign. We also kept checking her gums next to her side front teeth, thinking maybe she's finally getting her middle front teeth, but nothing. I was starting to really worry that something was wrong with my baby girl, & she couldn't even tell us about it.

Two days after we got home, we were playing with her on the floor, and her mouth was open & I saw two molars that were cutting through her gums! My little girl doesn't even have her two front teeth, but she is cutting molars?!?!?!? Her tooth acquisition has been the strangest ever! So, maybe that was part of the fussy behavior on the trip? Who knows!

One thing we do know: we are very blessed and happy to have wonderful family on both sides to visit and fellowship with. It may sound like we complain about the driving , but we truly consider it such a privilege to have so many siblings and cousins that we enjoy and want to spend time with. We have so much to give thanks for.